Your Tuesday Random-Ass Roundup: Yep, We Still Here.

NYC real estate is no joke. So with the Rapture supposed to go down last Saturday, I was scheming on a more spacious new crib from which to ride out the Tribulation. Alas, it looks like I’ll have to wait for October, at least.

In the interim, let’s get caught up on some worldly matters and see if we can divine the identity of The Beast from the news.

Six years after a California court ordered that the state had to reduce its prison population — the penal system there was so dangerously overcrowded that the justices said it reached the level of “cruel and unusual punishment” — the Supreme Court affirmed that decision, 5-4, ordering Cali to release tens of thousands of its prisoners.

“It’s not as though California was unaware that it had a problem,” writes SHG at Simple Justice. “But having created the problem by grabbing hold of every half-baked idea of imposing mandatory sentencing and three strikes and ever-longer, stiffer, harsher sentences, every politically beneficial tough-on-crime mindless knee-jerk opportunity to throw people in prison, it was stuck with the product of its own invention.”

These cages are where mentally ill inmates were kept in California’s overcrowded state prisons while awaiting treatment.

Justice Scalia was, unsurprisingly, apoplectic in his dissent, calling the decision “perhaps the most radical injunction issued by a court in our nation’s history.”

Tom Hayden writes that the ruling “sends a message that there may be increasing limits to America’s mass incarceration policies, including guarantees against cruel and unusual practices.” (G.D.)

Texas legislators are threatening to rescind their pledge to provide low income high school students with money for college. (Nicole)

Meanwhile, Tea Partiers in Pennsylvania criticized a controversial school voucher bill there for “creating another government program which gives a small segment of the population special rights” — in other words, helping too many poor kids. It’s part of a chorus of criticism for the measure, SB1, which isn’t likely to die quietly: very rich conservatives are spending buckets of cash to back the bill in order to make the Keystone State a national petri dish for school vouchers. (G.D.)

PB’s own Jamelle Bouieexplains that the real welfare kings and queens in the U.S. are middle and upper class families. (blackink12)

The Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria has frozen grants to China, citing problems with grant management. Problems include possible financial mismanagement and the direction of funds to government controlled NGOs at the expense of independent NGOs. Thanks to lower-than-expected donations, the Global Fund is reexamining recipients and some are questioning whether China needs aid at all. (Nicole)

The Obama administration appoints a Director of Progressive Media and Online Response. That is, someone who makes friends with the professional left on Twitter. (quadmoniker)
Pres. Obama and FLOTUS get their stout on in Dublin. (G.D.)

Alright, kinfolk. What did we miss? What should we be reading? Hit us in the comments.

The Texas thing reminds me of how Michigan backed out of funding a similar scholarship deal.. called the Michigan Promise :\

On violent crime: I feel like this is misleading, and would call everyone’s attention to the local aspects. The article points out that NYC’s murder rate is up. Flint, MI (which I guess doesn’t make it into the stats because its population is smaller) is insane; Detroit is ‘better’ but still worse than.. everywhere in the country but Flint? (See FBI’s stats, released yesterday: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/preliminary-annual-ucr-jan-dec-2010) Puerto Rico is dealing with historic highs in violent crime; more people have been murdered so far this year than any year on record. (And not to oversimplify a complex phenomenon, but at least three of these four are dealing with unemployment rates far higher than the national average, and it’s hard not to make connections between the two.)

http://www.postbourgie.com G.D.

great points, all.

NYC’s murder rate is up, but that’s not too surprising; it’s been unbelievably low over the last decade. in 1991, the city had nearly two thousand murders. it’s been hovering around a few hundreds in the aughts. Still way higher than most cities might see in several years, but considering how many people live here…

anyway, there was almost no way that number was going to stay that low.